SMEs and Access to Bank Credit: Evidence on the Regional Propagation of the Financial Crisis in the UK
Hans Degryse, Kent Matthews, Tianshu Zhao
Journal of Financial Stability,
2018
Abstract
We study the sensitivity of banks’ credit supply to small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in the UK with respect to the banks’ financial condition before and during the financial crisis. Employing unique data on the geographical location of all bank branches in the UK, we connect firms’ access to bank credit to the financial condition (i.e., bank health and the use of core deposits) of all bank branches in the vicinity of the firm for the period 2004–2011. Before the crisis, banks’ local financial conditions did not influence credit availability irrespective of the functional distance (i.e., the distance between bank branch and bank headquarters). However, during the crisis, we find that SMEs with banks within their vicinity that have stronger financial conditions faced greater credit availability when the functional distance is close. Our results point to a “flight to headquarters” effect during the financial crisis.
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Housing Consumption and Macroprudential Policies in Europe: An Ex Ante Evaluation
Antonios Mavropoulos, Qizhou Xiong
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 17,
2018
Abstract
In this paper, we use the panel of the first two waves of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey by the European Central Bank to study housing demand of European households and evaluate potential housing market regulations in the post-crisis era. We provide a comprehensive account of the housing decisions of European households between 2010 and 2014, and structurally estimate the housing preference of a simple life-cycle housing choice model. We then evaluate the effect of a tighter LTV/LTI regulation via counter-factual simulations. We find that those regulations limit homeownership and wealth accumulation, reduces housing consumption but may be welfare improving for the young households.
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The Exchange Rate, Asymmetric Shocks and Asymmetric Distributions
Calin-Vlad Demian, Filippo di Mauro
International Economics,
August
2018
Abstract
The elasticity of exports to exchange rate fluctuations has been the subject of a large body of literature without a clear consensus emerging. Using a novel sector-level dataset based on firm level information, we show that exchange rate elasticities double in size when country and sector specific firm productivity distributions are considered in the empirical estimations. In addition, exports appear to be sensitive to appreciation episodes, but rather unaffected by depreciations. Finally, only rather large changes in the exchange rate appear to matter. The paper intends to contribute to the debate on the effectiveness and impacts of exchange rate movements, which features highly in the policy agenda.
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Differences Make a Difference: Diversity in Social Learning and Value Creation
Yiwei Fang, Bill Francis, Iftekhar Hasan
Journal of Corporate Finance,
2018
Abstract
Prior research has demonstrated that CEOs learn privileged information from their social connections. Going beyond the importance of the number of social ties in a CEO's social network, this paper studies the value generated from a diverse social environment. We construct an index of social-network heterogeneity (SNH) that captures the extent to which CEOs are connected to people of different demographic attributes and skill sets. We find that higher CEO SNH leads to greater firm value through the channels of better corporate innovation and diversified M&As. Overall, the evidence suggests that CEOs' exposure to human diversity enhances social learning and creates greater growth opportunities for firms.
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"The Good News about Bad News": Information about Past Organisational Failure and its Impact on Worker Productivity
Sabrina Jeworrek, Vanessa Mertins, Michael Vlassopoulos
Abstract
Failure in organisations is a very common phenomenon. Little is known about whether past failure affects workers’ subsequent performance. We conduct a field experiment in which we follow up a failed mail campaign to attract new volunteers with a phone campaign pursuing the same goal. We recruit temporary workers to carry out the phone campaign and randomly assign them to either receive or not receive information about the previous failure and measure their performance. We find that informed workers perform better – in terms of both numbers dialed (about 14% improvement) and completed interviews (about 20% improvement) – regardless of whether they had previously worked on the failed mail campaign. Evidence from a second experiment with student volunteers asked to support a campaign to reduce food waste suggests that the mechanism behind our finding relates to contextual inference: Informing workers/volunteers that they are pursuing a goal that is hard to attain seems to add meaning to the work involved, leading them to exert more effort.
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When Arm’s Length is too Far: Relationship Banking over the Credit Cycle
Thorsten Beck, Hans Degryse, Ralph De Haas, Neeltje van Horen
Journal of Financial Economics,
Nr. 1,
2018
Abstract
We conduct face-to-face interviews with bank CEOs to classify 397 banks across 21 countries as either relationship or transaction lenders. We then use the geographic coordinates of these banks’ branches and of 14,100 businesses to analyze how the lending techniques of banks in the vicinity of firms are related to credit constraints at two contrasting points of the credit cycle. We find that while relationship lending is not associated with credit constraints during a credit boom, it alleviates such constraints during a downturn. This positive role of relationship lending is stronger for small and opaque firms and in regions with a more severe economic downturn. Moreover, our evidence suggests that relationship lending mitigates the impact of a downturn on firm growth and does not constitute evergreening of loans.
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Does It Pay to Get Connected? An Examination of Bank Alliance Network and Bond Spread
Iftekhar Hasan, Céline Meslier, Amine Tarazi, Mingming Zhou
Journal of Economics and Business,
im Erscheinen
Abstract
This paper examines the effects of bank alliance network on bonds issued by European banks during the period 1990–2009. We construct six measures capturing different dimensions of banks’ network characteristics. In opposition to the results obtained for non-financial firms, our findings indicate that being part of a network does not create value for bank’s bondholders, indicating a dark side effect of strategic alliances in the banking sector. While being part of a network is perceived as a risk-increasing event by market participants, this negative perception is significantly lower for the larger banks, and, to a lesser extent, for the more profitable banks. Moreover, during crisis times, the positive impact on bond spread of a bank’s higher centrality or of a bank’s higher connectedness in the network is stronger, indicating that market participants may fear spillover effects within the network during periods of banks’ heightened financial fragility.
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Criminal Network Formation and Optimal Detection Policy: The Role of Cascade of Detection
Liuchun Deng, Yufeng Sun
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization,
September
2017
Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of cascade of detection, how detection of a criminal triggers detection of his network neighbors, on criminal network formation. We develop a model in which criminals choose both links and actions. We show that the degree of cascade of detection plays an important role in shaping equilibrium criminal networks. Surprisingly, greater cascade of detection could reduce ex ante social welfare. In particular, we prove that full cascade of detection yields a weakly denser criminal network than that under partial cascade of detection. We further characterize the optimal allocation of the detection resource and demonstrate that it should be highly asymmetric among ex ante identical agents.
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European versus Anglo-Saxon Credit View: Evidence from the Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis
Marc Altdörfer, Carlos A. De las Salas Vega, Andre Guettler, Gunter Löffler
Abstract
We analyse whether different levels of country ties to Europe among the rating agencies Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch affect the assignment of sovereign credit ratings, using the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis of 2009-2012 as a natural laboratory. We find that Fitch, the rating agency among the “Big Three” with significantly stronger ties to Europe compared to its two more US-tied peers, assigned on average more favourable ratings to Eurozone issuers during the crisis. However, Fitch’s better ratings for Eurozone issuers seem to be neglected by investors as they rather follow the rating actions of Moody’s and S&P. Our results thus doubt the often proposed need for an independent European credit rating agency.
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Decision-making Power in Foreign Subsidiaries and Its Effect on Financial Constraints: An Analysis for Selected European Transition Economies on the Basis of the IWH FDI Micro Database 2013
Andrea Gauselmann, Felix Noth
Eastern European Economics,
Nr. 6,
2016
Abstract
This article analyzes whether the distribution of decision-making power between the headquarters and foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises (MNEs) affects the foreign affiliates’ financial constraints. The findings show that not much decision-making power has as yet been moved from headquarters to foreign subsidiaries in European post-transition economies. The high concentration of decision-making power within the MNE’s subsidiary points toward higher financial constraints. However, a nonlinear effect is found, which suggests that financial constraints within the subsidiary only increase with more decision-making power when the power granted to the subsidiary is at a low level. For subsidiaries that already have autonomy in decision-making, granting more power in this regard has no effect on financial constraints.
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